


I'm a mess (for your love)- Klance lifeguard AU

by literallynewtscamander



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura's hot, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, Pidge is a nerd, Shiro is a good brother, Slow Burn, Summer, broganes, it is wednesday my dudes, klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-20 19:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17628314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallynewtscamander/pseuds/literallynewtscamander
Summary: Keith buried his head in his hands and replied with a muffled, “Yeah. I fell in the pool like a moron. And then he helped me out of the pool and we talked and now I’m here in your stupid car.”Shiro seemed to contemplate for a moment, then said, “You know what, little bro? I’m going to help you out with this guy. In fact, I’m so confident that it’ll work that I’ll make a bet with you.”“And what’s that?”“If, with my help, he hasn’t fallen madly in love with you by the end of summer, you get to shave my head. Deal?”Keith grinned. “Okay. Deal.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by my summer job as the worst lifeguard ever

Keith had never been a fan of public pools. They were generally loud, hot, sticky, and a little bit gross, and no matter how much sunblock he wore, he always ended up with a sunburn. One time when he was nine his older brother dragged him to the pool under the pretense of being a “good brother,” but Keith still suspects it was just to bother him. Even though he’d been bribed with an ice cream cone, he stubbornly refused to have a good time. He spent the entire time sitting in the wave pool, and after an hour, his brother finally caved and took them home. He’d never been back since. After all, he was busy, and way too old for that, anyway. He could always find an excuse not to go- homework, illness, sun allergies. That is, until he found out who worked a lifeguard there. 

He didn’t usually go for the athletic type, but this one was special. At first Keith had hated him. They met in biology, which was one of the hardest required courses. The boy who sat behind him was the worst part of the class; he wouldn’t stop kicking his chair and talking so loudly that he woke Keith up in the middle of his naps. Keith hadn’t learned his name for a while, just referred to him as “the chair-kicking moron” until he finally caught it in a conversation- Lance. Everyone seemed to like him- he was charismatic, genuine, and, though he hated to admit it, super attractive. Their only interaction for a while was strictly class-related, and while Keith made his disdain pretty obvious, Lance never seemed offended. In fact, he seemed amused by it. They’d only ever had two real conversations, but Keith found himself hating Lance less throughout the year. Sure, he was a little loud, but never malicious. He just wanted to talk to his friends in class, and what was wrong with being social? Soon it got to the point where Keith’s heart rate went up at the sight of the back of Lance’s head. No amount of rationalizing could hide the fact that he had a pretty substantial crush, but of course he would never tell anyone. Keith was seriously considering asking for his number some time, which was always a gamble. Lance probably wasn’t into guys, anyway. Before Keith could muster up the courage to say something, school was out.

It was a pretty big school, so Keith had expected to never have a class with Lance ever again. He was depressed about it for weeks. His mom always said he was a little moody, but this went beyond moody. He was throwing a straight up bitch fit. Then one day Lance posted an infuriatingly hot selfie on Instagram wearing sunglasses and…. a staff tank top from the local pool. Keith had bolted up in bed, thrown on a pair of flip flops, and pretty much begged his older brother Shiro to go with him to the pool. Shiro had been baffled and brought up the pool incident from eight years ago. But, after a little cajoling, they had ended up at the dreaded public pool in 98 degree weather, searching for a boy Keith had talked to maybe twice before, who barely tolerated him. 

Maybe this was a bad idea.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What if he doesn’t have a shift today? What if he doesn’t even recognize me? What if-

“Keith.” Shiro stood at his side, trying to get his attention. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to throw up.” Keith shook his head and started to turn around. “Let’s just forget about it and go home. It looks super crowded anyway.” Before he could run off, Shiro blocked his path. “You’ve been acting super weird today. What’s going on?” he asked. Keith tried to sidestep him and escape, but it was looking like a futile endeavor. Finally he stopped trying and said, “It’s nothing. Can we just drop it and get out of here, please?” Shiro started saying something else, but Keith didn’t quite catch it because… holy shit! That was Lance sitting over by the kid’s area! He looked almost exactly the same, maybe a little tanner from the sun. It must not have been an exciting job, because he looked two seconds from falling asleep on the lifeguard chair. Keith must’ve stared for a while, because the next thing he registered was Shiro swatting him over the head. “Dude! What are you….” he trailed off, following Keith’s gaze. “Oh. Hey, he’s cute. Is that what all of this is about?”   
“Yes! But it was clearly a bad idea and now I really think we should leave. It’s really not a big deal, okay?”

Instead of responding, Shiro looked him up and down, seemingly in assessment. “Here, take my sunglasses and stop complaining. Either you go in there and get his number or I’ll do it for you and that would be super embarrassing.” Then he tossed his sunglasses at Keith and walked through the front door.  
“Shiro! Quit it! I’ll give you twenty bucks to get back in the car right now!”  
Shiro ignored him and kept walking. Keith stood rooted in the same spot for a few moments, wrestling with his thoughts. Should he just leave? He could always claim that he had never met Shiro in his life. Was that believable? Probably not. Left with no other choice, Keith ducked his head and followed, muttering under his breath, “I’m gonna kill him.”   
The sun beat down on the back of his neck as soon as he stepped out from the shade, and he was a little grateful for Shiro’s sunglasses. He slipped them on and trailed his brother to an open lounge chair by the side of the wave pool where Shiro sat looking smug. Keith threw him a disdainful glance, then grabbed his wallet. “If we’re gonna be here, you better at least pay for my ice cream cone.”

“Knock yourself out, little bro.” Shiro stretched out on the chair and closed his eyes. Keith took out twenty dollars for good measure and threw his beach towel over his brother's eyes. “You suck.” were his parting words as he made his way over to the snack bar, taking a route that kept Lance’s back turned to him at all times. I’ll just make sure he doesn’t see me, and then we can leave soon. No big deal. He was starting to calm down by the time he reached the snack bar and was greeted by the boy working the counter. Keith got the feeling that he knew him, but couldn’t place it. “Hey, what can I get you?” said the other boy with a bright smile. In Keith’s opinion, he was much too cheery for somebody working in the food service industry, but he restrained himself from rolling his eyes. After all, he had some manners. “Uh, ice cream. Vanilla, please.”  
“Coming right up. Hey, we go to school together, right?”  
Great. Did everybody at this goddamn pool go to the same school?  
Keith gave a tight lipped smile. “Not sure. It’s a big school. Maybe.”  
The boy didn’t seem put off by Keith’s monosyllabic answers, instead responding, “Well, I’m Hunk. It was cool to meet you, anyway.” There was a moment of awkward silence while Hunk’s coworker finished swirling the ice cream cone. Finally, after a few seconds of avoiding eye contact and tapping his fingers on the counter, Hunk handed the cone over. Keith paid quickly, fumbling with the change, then bade him a quick, “see you around.” Well, that was a nightmare. On top of everything, it seemed to be getting hotter somehow. Was that possible? He was walking alongside the pool back to Shiro when a group of kids dashed around the corner yelling. One of the little girls stepped on Keith’s foot, and as he whirled around to yell at her, his foot lost purchase and slipped out from under him. In what seemed like slow motion, Keith barrelled headfirst into the pool. The first thing Keith registered was the cold, then the stinging of chlorine in his eyes. He spent a disorienting few seconds underwater before surfacing with a splutter and pushing his wet hair back. He’d lost his sunglasses at some point. “Jesus christ.” he muttered, looking down at the sad, wet remains of his ice cream cone.

“Well, that’s perfectly good ice cream you just wasted.” It was a familiar voice, one Keith had been thinking of all summer. Keith slowly raised his gaze to meet….. Lance. Lance, in the same sunglasses and t shirt from his very recent selfie, looking down at him with a smirk on his face. “Do you need me to jump in and save you, or can you swim?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are actually... kind of okay. But Keith is still an idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just spent my valentine's day planning a surprise birthday party for my friend who is dating the boy I'm in love with. so my day was great.

There were a couple of moments in Keith’s life that he had truly wanted to disappear into thin air- once in third grade when his mom had sewn him a super embarrassing ladybug halloween costume, again when his parents sat him down to explain where babies came from, and….. right now. Here he was, chlorinated water up his nose, the runny remains of an ice cream cone in his hand, and the cutest boy he’d ever seen there to witness it. Maybe he should just let himself drown. 

“You know, if you can’t swim, I’m technically supposed to save you.” Lance was still staring down at him, only half serious. 

Keith’s eyes went wide as he scrambled for an intelligent response. “No. I, ah, I can swim.” Smooth. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You don’t have to jump in after me. I wouldn’t want you to have to… get wet or anything.” God, he must have sunstroke or something. 

Lance grinned in response. “I don’t know if you noticed, but, uh, I’m actually a lifeguard. Getting wet is my literal job. Here, let me help you out.” He reached for the whistle around his neck and blew one long whistle, climbing down from the chair he’d been sitting in. Once on solid ground he held out his hand. “Keith, right?” 

A little stunned, Keith took the hand offered to him and climbed out of the pool. He was suddenly having a lot of regrets over his choice of attire: too-small, red swim shorts and flip flops that were falling apart at the soles. What should he do with his hands? Cross his arms? Clasp them behind his back? “Um, yeah. Keith. That’s me.” 

Lance leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m not really supposed to get off my stand unless somebody’s hurt, but, uh, my boss isn’t here right now, so I figured I’d risk it.”

Keith wracked his brain for something to say, some way to keep Lance talking to him. “What was the whistle for, then?” He must have chosen the right response, because Lance’s face broke into another smile. “Well,” he said, “Whenever I have to get off of stand, I have to blow the whistle so whoever is on station 8 covers my zone.” He turned to wave at the girl across the pool, who gave a little wave back. “We wouldn’t want any toddlers drowning, would we?”  
Keith shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind much, actually.”   
Lance chuckled a little. “Not a fan of kids?”  
“Well, I just got pushed into a pool by a bunch of kids, so, uh, not really.”   
“Oh, them.” Lance rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “I probably should have stopped them from running sooner. Sorry about that.”   
Before Keith could answer, a tall woman in a staff t-shirt and dark skin called from the main building. “Lance! Back on stand, please! Poor Carly doesn’t deserve to cover your zone while you harass a patron.” She was pretty, if you were into that sort of thing. Also, a little scary. 

Lance looked apologetic. “That’s my boss, Allura. Guess I’d better get back on the job. It was cool to see you again, though.”  
How did you respond to that? Should he finally ask for his number? Was that weird? What came out of his mouth was, “Sure.” There was a long pause. “Good luck with…. saving toddlers or whatever.” Then he turned quickly, cheeks burning red, and tried to walk as nonchalantly as possible back to Shiro on the lounge chair. Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit. He’d finally talked to Lance! Sure, he had acted a little moronic, but they’d had a conversation outside of school. And it went pretty well, too. When Shiro saw him approaching, he sat up. “What, no ice cream?”  
“We have to leave right now.”  
“Alright, say no more. Did you at least talk to him?”  
Keith gathered up the towels with the speed of a man pursued by wolves. “I’ll tell you about it in the car. Can we just go before I do something stupid, please?” For all the crap Shiro gave him, he was actually a good brother and even stood in between Keith and the pool to block any last glimpses Lance might be tempted to catch. “Yeah, let’s go.”  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------

As was typical for a college student, Shiro had a pretty crappy car. The air conditioning only ever seemed to work in the winter, it always smelled like dogs, and there were at least a few dents on the exterior. Usually Keith acted like a pain in the ass about it, but right now he was too absorbed in thought to care about his surroundings. Had Lance gotten taller in the three weeks they’d been apart? He was certain that his arms had gotten more muscular and toned. His brain kept replaying the moment where Lance had reached out to help Keith out of the pool. Yeah, his biceps were definitely more impressive. Most of all, though, he was thinking about his signature blinding smile. Every time it made an appearance Keith could feel his pulse racing and his mental faculties deserting him. This was so unfair! One minute Keith was a perfectly functioning human being and the next he was about as articulate as a five year old.   
Shiro broke through his haze of thought with a sharp, “Keith!”  
“Huh?”  
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, ten minutes. What happened back there?”  
Keith leaned his head against the window in frustration. “Basically he’s perfect and I’m an idiot. He was in my biology class last year and I wanted to ask him out but I don’t even know if he’s straight or not but I found out where he worked and I kind of fell in the pool-”  
Shiro came to a stop a little too suddenly. “You did what?”  
Keith buried his head in his hands and replied with a muffled, “Yeah. I fell in the pool like a moron. And then he helped me out of the pool and we talked and now I’m here in your stupid car.”  
Shiro seemed to contemplate for a moment, then said, “You know what, little bro? I’m going to help you out with this guy. In fact, I’m so confident that it’ll work that I’ll make a bet with you.”  
“And what’s that?”   
“If, with my help, he hasn’t fallen madly in love with you by the end of summer, you get to shave my head. Deal?”  
Keith grinned. “Okay. Deal.”


End file.
